Ontology Driven RDF Data Creation for the Universal Information Adapter Master’s Thesis Bastiaan Bijl Ontology Driven RDF Data Creation for the Universal Information Adapter THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Bastiaan Bijl born in Rotterdam Web Information Systems Department of Software Technology Faculty EEMCS, Delft University of Croon Elektrotechniek B.V. Technology Schiemond 20-22, 3024 EE Delft, the Netherlands Rotterdam, the Netherlands http://wis.ewi.tudelft.nl http://www.croon.nl c 2012 Bastiaan Bijl. Ontology Driven RDF Data Creation for the Universal Information Adapter Author: Bastiaan Bijl Student id: 1312405 Email: [email protected] Abstract In this thesis a closed RDF data production platform is presented that is highly configurable. The use of Named Graphs supports a modularized ontology and a detailed provenance of the multi-user knowledge data. It is designed and configured for the Systems Engineering context of ship building industry part- nership Integraal Samenwerken. The information model originates from the ISO 15926 standard and the design of the platform functions as a prototype for the formulation of ISO 15926 Part 11. The platform consists of a running data-store and workspace user interface, both available over the Web. Thesis Committee: Chair: Prof. dr. ir. G.J. Houben, Faculty EEMCS, TUDelft University supervisor: Dr. ir. A.J.H. Hidders, Faculty EEMCS, TUDelft Company supervisor: Ing. L.C. van Ruijven MSc, Croon Elektrotechniek B.V. Committee Member: Dr. E. Visser, Faculty EEMCS, TUDelft Preface Can you believe this world’s just exactly as we built it, running out of control? The Nerve // MUTEMATH The challenges and appeals conveyed in my work at Croon are not easily summarized. I had to face both a rather obscure starting point and a complicated stakeholder or- ganization, but the urgency and ambitious intent of the assignment compensated this by firing my enthusiasm. The opportunity to contribute to the formulation of an ISO norm, the air of applying novel techniques to a problematic industrial practice and the possibility of thus setting an example that might be noticed stimulated me. From the moment my assignment took its definite form, it was my wish to present in this thesis both a platform with sound design which would be smoothly running at the time of its presentation and a description placing the platform in the center of the current academic discussion. A judgment of how closely I reached that goal is left to the reader, but the biggest effort was spent on implementing, testing and redesigning the platform. The first five months I worked alone, but from then I had the privilege to experience a different working style for an extensive period when I got the full-time help of a Java programmer. I wrote this report in parallel, but when it was time to finish the work that could be done within the scope of a thesis project, I transferred all further development to him and worked to give this report its final body. A new level of complexity appeared when the work was prepared to be presented to the ISO workgroup. The triple split of bringing together the academic technical view, the practical client view and the political standardization view in this report resulted in an extra appendix for ISO readers. I want to thank the people from our department that formed such a friendly basis to work from. I highly appreciate the freedom Leo van Ruijven and Jan Hidders gave me and the confidence they had in me, although at some points I felt it was too much. The biggest help was Mohamad Alamili to whom I owe both an endless source of reflection and a great bunch of fruit. Bastiaan Bijl Delft, the Netherlands January 15, 2014 iii Contents Preface iii Contents v 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Subject matter . 2 1.3 Research objectives . 2 1.4 Approach . 5 1.5 Outline . 6 2 Linked Data and Linked Data Applications 7 2.1 What is Linked Data? . 7 2.2 Linked Data Applications . 14 2.3 Development libraries . 21 3 Semantic Information Integration Platforms 23 3.1 Information Systems for CAE . 23 3.2 ISO 15926 . 27 4 Context of Integraal Samenwerken 31 4.1 Integraal Samenwerken . 31 4.2 Project 8 . 31 4.3 Requirements . 32 4.4 User analysis . 35 4.5 Pre-ODRAC implementation . 36 4.6 Distributed context . 37 4.7 Example model . 38 5 Data model 41 5.1 Individuals . 41 5.2 Relationships . 45 5.3 Individual templates . 47 5.4 Meta-data . 49 v CONTENTS CONTENTS 5.5 Graph replace-chain . 50 5.6 Transaction model . 51 5.7 Translation labels . 51 5.8 Libraries . 52 5.9 Relation to OWL . 57 5.10 Conclusion . 58 6 System Architecture 59 6.1 Data-store service . 59 6.2 Workspace service . 62 6.3 Workflow . 66 6.4 Project configuration . 69 6.5 Mappers . 69 6.6 Conclusion . 71 7 User Interface 73 7.1 The WUI within the platform . 73 7.2 Workspace . 74 7.3 Browser . 75 7.4 Valuebox . 77 7.5 Feedback on submitted values . 78 7.6 Navigator . 79 7.7 Importing and exporting TriX-files . 80 7.8 Manual querying . 80 7.9 Conclusion . 80 8 Implementation 81 8.1 Java package structure . 81 8.2 Java design patterns . 83 8.3 The use of TDB . 87 8.4 JavaScript application . 88 8.5 Conclusion . 91 9 Evaluation 93 9.1 Comparison to 1.x version . 93 9.2 User satisfaction . 94 9.3 Reception by Integraal Samenwerken . 95 9.4 Performance . 97 9.5 Reliability . 99 9.6 Configurability . 100 9.7 Extensibility . 101 10 Conclusions and Future Work 103 10.1 Conclusion . 103 10.2 Contributions . 104 10.3 Discussion . 104 10.4 Future work . 105 vi CONTENTS CONTENTS 11 Reflection 107 11.1 Phases . 107 11.2 Methodology . 109 11.3 Stakeholder communication . 109 11.4 Literature referencing . 110 Bibliography 113 A Ontology review 119 A.1 Management . 119 A.2 Structure . 121 A.3 Conclusion . 124 B Quality aspects 125 B.1 ISO 25010 quality in use . 125 B.2 ISO 25010 product quality . 126 B.3 Semantic Content Authoring . 128 C Graphs 131 C.1 Granularity . 131 C.2 Stable states . 132 C.3 Construction states . 138 D Primer vocabulary 139 E Perspective of ISO 15926 145 E.1 ODRAC within the ISO’s narrative . 145 E.2 Mapping narrative to actual design . 147 vii Chapter 1 Introduction In this work a Linked Data production platform is presented. It is built as a proto- type application following the data modelling approach from the ISO 15926 Part 11 methodology. This standard from the Systems Engineering community prescribes an RDF structure and contains some architectural directions for knowledge base plat- forms that can fully describe industrial systems. The methodology is described in Section 3.2. The guided RDF data editor presented here could be applied to other knowledge domains as well. The use of a restrictive vocabulary layer on top of RDF and RDF Schema, allowing a highly configurable multi-level ontology to structure the data production process, is the core principle, so throughout this paper we refer to it as the ODRAC platform: Ontology Driven RDF Data Creation. The ODRAC system can be called both a production platform and an application, although the first is more accurate because the proposed design consists of multiple software nodes and includes a data model. 1.1 Background The work is done at Croon Elektrotechniek BV on the department of Technology De- velopment located at Delft. Croon is one of the member companies of the Integraal Samenwerken partnership, and in this context it is responsible for the development of the Universal Information Adapter (UIA). The Adapter is a functional solution for in- formation integration within the Dutch ship building industry and it plays a key role in a number of projects of the partnership. The main purpose of the Adapter is to integrate different information sources and to facilitate information negotiation between compa- nies contracted to design and build a ship. A general information integration platform could make the engineering work of a ship more efficient and reduce miscommunica- tion and related failure costs. The partnership is the main stakeholder in the design of the ODRAC platform and the requirements will mainly be gathered from this context. The reception by Integraal Samenwerken of the design and implementation plays an important role in the evaluation of the platform. The close relation Croon has with the ISO 15926 community influenced the choice to apply the Systems Engineering legacy of this standard to the UIA case. Croon also has a hand in the formulation of Part 11, which is intended as a minimal methodolog- ical basis how to use the ISO 15926 theory in a practical way. The work of the thesis 1 1.2 Subject matter Introduction functions as a reconnaissance of an efficient interpretation of this Part 11 approach. Readers from the ISO perspective are referred to Appendix E for an explanatory bridge between the ISO narrative and the approach of this thesis. 1.2 Subject matter The choice for the ISO 15926 Part 11 approach brings with it the use of RDF and the need to formalize the syntax of communication data, for example using the TriX XML format. Linked Data is a very open technology used in varying contexts resulting in different types of Linked Data editors. To overcome information integration problems Linked Data has promising capabilities, but the application of these capabilities is not trivial.